What Do We Know About Compassion?

Many studies have been conducted on compassion. Here’s a summary of some of the most recent findings.

The Brain Can Be Trained in Compassion

A recent study by the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison reveals that adults can be trained to increase their compassion. This ground-breaking research, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, examines the effects of compassion training on altruistic behavior and its impact on the neural systems that underpin compassion.

Lead author Helen Weng explains the study's key question: "Our fundamental question was, 'Can compassion be trained and learned in adults? Can we become more caring if we practice that mindset?'" She concludes, "Our evidence points to yes."

The researchers taught participants compassion meditation, an ancient Buddhist technique to enhance empathy for those suffering. During meditation, participants envisioned someone in distress and practiced wishing that their suffering would be alleviated. They repeated phrases like, "May you be free from suffering. May you have joy and ease."

Participants began with someone for whom they naturally felt compassion, such as a loved one. They then extended the practice to themselves, strangers, and even a "difficult person" with whom they were in conflict, such as a problematic colleague or roommate. Weng likens this to building strength through exercise: "It's kind of like weight training. Using this systematic approach, we found that people can actually build up their compassion 'muscle' and respond to others' suffering with care and a desire to help."

The compassion training was compared to a control group using cognitive reappraisal to reframe negative thoughts to reduce their emotional impact. Both groups listened to guided audio instructions for 30 minutes daily over two weeks. "We wanted to investigate whether people could begin to change their emotional habits in a relatively short period of time," Weng explains.

The real measure of success was whether the training could lead to more altruistic behavior. This was tested through the "Redistribution Game," in which participants were asked to sacrifice their own money to help a "Victim" treated unfairly by a "Dictator." They observed the Dictator giving only $1 of $10 to the Victim and then chose how much of their $5 to redistribute to the Victim.

"We found that people trained in compassion were more likely to spend their own money altruistically to help someone who was treated unfairly than those who were trained in cognitive reappraisal," says Weng.

The study also assessed brain responses using functional MRI (fMRI). Participants viewed images of human suffering and used their trained compassion techniques to generate caring feelings. The control group saw the same images but was asked to reframe them positively. The research revealed that the most altruistic participants after the compassion training also exhibited the greatest brain activity changes when viewing suffering. Increased activity was observed in the inferior parietal cortex (involved in empathy) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotions and positive feelings.

"People seem to become more sensitive to other people's suffering, but this is challenging emotionally. They learn to regulate their emotions so that they approach people's suffering with caring and wanting to help rather than turning away," explains Weng.

Richard J. Davidson, UW-Madison psychology and psychiatry professor and founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, reflects on the rapid brain function changes observed: "The fact that alterations in brain function were observed after just a total of seven hours of training is remarkable."

Davidson believes this training has broad applications, noting, "Compassion and kindness training in schools can help children learn to be attuned to their own emotions as well as those of others, which may decrease bullying. Compassion training also may benefit people who have social challenges such as social anxiety or antisocial behavior."

Weng hopes the general population will benefit: "We studied the effects of this training with healthy participants, demonstrating that this can help the average person. I would love for more people to access the training and try it for a week or two—what changes do they see in their lives?"

Both compassion and reappraisal training resources are available on the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds' website. Weng adds, "I think we are only scratching the surface of how compassion can transform people's lives."

Compassionate, Altruistic Acts More Common in Areas With High Well-Being

?A recent study published in Psychological Science reveals that individuals in regions of the United States with high levels of well-being are significantly more likely to donate a kidney to a stranger, an act of profound altruism. Senior author Abigail Marsh, a psychological scientist at Georgetown University, observes: "Anywhere from 11% to 54% of adults say that they’d be willing to consider altruistic kidney donation, but only a tiny fraction of them become donors. Our work suggests that subjective well-being may be a factor that 'nudges' some adults into donating."

The concept of altruism, including its existence and definition, has long been debated. Many ostensibly selfless acts often yield indirect benefits to the altruist, such as enhanced social status or avoidance of negative judgments. However, Marsh contends that non-directed kidney donation meets the strictest criteria for altruism, as it involves donating a kidney to someone with whom the donor has no connection. The process requires significant time and entails the potential for serious discomfort and pain.

Marsh and lead author Kristin Brethel-Haurwitz hypothesized that well-being might influence such donations, as it is already linked to other prosocial activities like volunteering and charitable contributions. To investigate this potential link, they used data on kidney donations from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and well-being data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

As anticipated, their analysis found a positive relationship between altruistic kidney donations and well-being. States with higher per capita donation rates tended to have higher levels of well-being, a pattern that persisted when combining states into broader geographic regions and in data from a single year (2010). This suggests that well-being may promote genuine altruism, beyond charitable giving.

Crucially, the relationship remained significant even after accounting for variations in factors like household income, age, education, and health, as well as regional cultural factors like religiosity and collectivist attitudes. These findings hold implications for public health.

"Kidney disease is now the 8th leading cause of death in the US, and living kidney donations are the best hope for restoring people to health who have kidney disease," Marsh explains. "Understanding the dynamics that lead to this kind of donation might help increase the numbers of donations, which currently are in decline."

Marsh also underscores the social significance for potential donors: "You’d be amazed by the responses some donors get from those who learn about their donation—people who see them as weird or even 'crazy' for doing something so far outside the norm as giving away an internal organ to a stranger." These data, however, "help to show that there are understandable, normal psychological mechanisms that lead to this kind of behavior, uncommon as it is."

Brethel-Haurwitz and Marsh conclude that the link between well-being and altruism may have broader implications, especially given the growing focus on societal well-being beyond mere economic considerations. "Given that altruism itself promotes well-being, policies that promote well-being may help to generate a virtuous circle whereby increases in well-being promote altruism that, in turn, increases well-being."

Compassion is Making a Comeback in America

Reflecting on the United States of a year, a decade, or a generation ago, one might ask: Is the U.S. now a more caring nation, or less so? With current political chaos in the U.S. and wars in Israel and Ukraine, psychological stress has become widespread.

If you believe that Americans have lost their compassion, you’d be right based on data—until recently. Since the late 1970s, psychologists have gauged empathy by asking millions of people how much they agree with statements like, "I feel tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me." In 2011, a pivotal study led by Sara Konrath examined these surveys and discovered a steep decline: By 2009, the average American college student reported less empathy than 75% of students from three decades prior.

This study ignited widespread concern about American empathy, leading to many theories about its decline: people were too lonely, stressed, isolated, or preoccupied with technology to care about each other. Younger generations bore the brunt of criticism, accused of being too self-centered and "hyper-online" to connect. The research bolstered long-standing fears that American morality was in decline. Jennifer Rubin noted in The Washington Post, "The empathy decline has manifested itself in an erosion of civility, decency, and compassion in our society and our politics."

However, the study also revealed that empathy is not a fixed trait. As Konrath explained in 2011, "The fact that empathy is declining means that there's more fluidity to it than previously thought. It means that empathy can change. It can go up."

Given the bleak news we often see, it’s easy to believe that empathy continues to fall. Yet, Konrath's earlier optimism has proven to be accurate. A few months ago, she and her colleagues published an update to their work, revealing that empathy among young Americans has rebounded to levels seen in the 1970s.

So why aren't we celebrating this resurgence in compassion?

Just as with the decline, people have sought explanations for this rise. One plausible reason could be collective suffering. Since the empathy lows of 2009, we've endured the Great Recession and a global pandemic. In A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit chronicles how disasters like San Francisco's earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11 prompted strangers to cross boundaries of race and class to help each other. Similarly, recent research documented a "pandemic of kindness," with increased charitable donations and volunteering during COVID-19.

Although history isn't a controlled experiment, and we can't be sure why empathy fell or why it's risen, we can question whether people will react to this good news as strongly as they did to the earlier, disheartening findings. Human beings are wired to pay more attention to negative events over positive ones—it's easier to ignore a sunset than a tsunami.

But this bias can distort our perception of the world. People often judge others based on their worst actions, not their best, and consistently underestimate how kind and caring others are. A recent survey of nearly 600,000 people across various nations and decades revealed a widespread belief that humans today are less kind and moral than in the past. Across dozens of countries and several decades,?people agreed: Human beings were less honest, kind, and moral than they had been before.?

However, this perceived decline is likely an illusion. When people were asked directly about their real-life experiences with strangers, coworkers, and friends, their answers remained consistent over the years. And despite concerns over societal moral decline, significant trends like reduced violent crime have suggested otherwise.

Our biased minds prompt us to see the worst in people, and the empathy decline reported 13 years ago matched that narrative perfectly, going viral. Konrath regularly hears from reporters about her 2011 paper on the empathy decline and informs them about her more optimistic update, yet articles about this positive turnaround are much rarer than those highlighting earlier grim findings.

We can certainly focus on cruelty and callousness, but we can also broaden our perspective to find kindness and compassion around us. The data is clear: There's plenty of both.

Power Reduces Compassion

?As comedic movie producer Mel Brooks once remarked, "it's good to be king." But does being king make you good? Two new studies suggest that power makes people less compassionate—except in one specific circumstance.

Power might not always corrupt, but it certainly dulls our emotional response to other people’s suffering. That's the conclusion of a paper published in Psychological Science.

A research team led by psychologist Gerben van Kleef of the University of Amsterdam classified a group of undergraduates as high-power or low-power after having them fill out a questionnaire. The students were then divided into pairs, with each participant sharing a story about an incident that caused them emotional suffering.

Afterward, the listeners assessed their reactions to the stories, noting the extent to which they felt sympathy or compassion, as well as how distressed they believed the storyteller to be. They also rated their own feelings of closeness toward their partner. Meanwhile, an electrocardiogram monitored their heartbeats to detect whether they were regulating their emotions, thus tempering their responses to their partner's pain.

The results were striking: the participants who perceived themselves as more powerful exhibited less compassion and distress than their low-power counterparts. They also showed less interest in developing a relationship with their partner, and their heart monitors indicated they were regulating their emotions to insulate themselves against feeling too much of their partner’s pain.

The researchers concluded, “Our study suggests that high-power individuals may suffer in interpersonal relationships because of their diminished capacity for compassion and empathy.”

A second study, also led by a psychologist from the University of Amsterdam, approached the connection between power and empathy from a different angle. In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,Michel J.J. Handgraaf describes a series of games designed to cause power shifts among a group of students.

As expected, participants who felt more powerful became stingier, offering less money in a bargaining game. However, there was a notable exception: “When recipients are completely powerless, offers increase,” the researchers found. “This effect is mediated by a change in framing of the situation. When the opponent is without power, feelings of social responsibility are evoked.”

According to van Kleef and his colleagues, the most advantageous position is either to have substantial power or none at all since complete powerlessness triggers compassion or at least a sense of noblesse oblige. If fears of a society split between haves and have-nots come true, we may end up in a real-world experiment testing these theories.

For Some Christians, Respect for Authority Outweighs Compassion

?As the 2024 presidential campaign shows us, Christians' moral values are far from monolithic.

Among the surprising aspects of the current presidential race is the significant support many evangelical Christians are giving to Donald Trump—a man who doesn't particularly embody the principles of Christian compassion. How can we understand his appeal to this devout group? Research by Arizona State University psychologist Kathryn Johnson and her team, published in Personality and Individual Differences, provides a clue. They found that people who believe in an authoritarian God are less likely to uphold moral values like empathy and compassion. Furthermore, their study indicates that believing in the Bible as the literal word of God doesn't increase support for the moral foundations of fairness and care.

"This may seem 'somewhat puzzling,' given that 'Jesus modeled compassion,'" notes Johnson and her colleagues. Motivated by concerns that committed Christians are often portrayed as monolithic, they examined attitudes deeply, comparing religious beliefs to behaviors and attitudes toward fundamental moral foundations. These foundations, as outlined by Jonathan Haidt in his work, include: harm/care (relieving suffering is virtuous); fairness/reciprocity (justice and rights are essential); in-group loyalty (patriotism); authority/respect (upholding social order); and purity/sanctity (cleanliness and avoiding contamination in literal and symbolic senses). The first two values are typically emphasized by liberals, while conservatives prioritize the latter three.

Johnson's team surveyed 450 American Christians, including 138 Catholics, recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. They responded to questionnaires measuring their resonance with these moral foundations, their commitment to their religious groups, their concept of God (commanding or punishing), the extent to which they interpret the Bible literally or metaphorically, and whether their faith motivates them to help others.

Christians whose faith focused on "outreaching" values—where closeness to God is linked with altruistic behavior—were more inclined to endorse the harm/care values, such as alleviating suffering and distress. However, those who viewed God as authoritarian were less likely to support these values. "This is consistent with previous research showing that such beliefs may reduce pro-social behavior and increase aggression," the researchers note.

Furthermore, the study found that "Biblical literalism was negatively or uncorrelated with the moral foundations of fairness and care." This discrepancy complicates the fact that the Bible literally advocates for "righteousness and justice" and "loving-kindness."

Therefore, Christians cannot be seen as a homogeneous group regarding ethical values. Variables like "beliefs about the nature of God, and styles of scriptural interpretation" heavily influence which moral foundations they emphasize and which they overlook. "There are many ways of being religious," conclude the researchers. "One could add that some have more in common with Jesus' teachings than others."

?Compassion and the Science of Human Goodness

?Over a decade ago, Dacher Keltner, co-founder of the Greater Good Science Center, summarized ground-breaking discoveries in the emerging field of human goodness in his Greater Good article, "The Compassionate Instinct." He proposed that compassion is "an evolved part of human nature, rooted in our brain and biology." Since then, research from diverse disciplines like neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, behavioral health, and developmental science has firmly supported this idea. Over time, studies have repeatedly suggested that compassion is indeed an innate aspect of human nature, crucial for our well-being and even essential to our survival. What began as a collection of intriguing studies has now evolved into a scientific movement, reshaping how we perceive humanity.

What is Compassion?

Compassion is often confused with empathy, which is defined by researchers as the emotional or visceral experience of another's feelings. It automatically mirrors another's emotions, like sadness at a friend's tears. Altruism is behavior that benefits someone else and may or may not be driven by empathy or compassion, as in the case of donating for tax purposes. While compassion often involves an empathic response and altruistic behavior, it is specifically defined as the emotional response to suffering, coupled with an authentic desire to alleviate that suffering.

Is Compassion Natural or Learned?

Despite long-held beliefs to the contrary, increasing evidence suggests that both animals and humans have an inherent "compassionate instinct," a natural, automatic response crucial for survival. Research by University of Chicago neuroscientist Jean Decety found that even rats empathize with a suffering companion and go out of their way to help. Similarly, studies with chimpanzees and human infants too young to have learned social norms show that they spontaneously engage in helpful behavior. Michael Tomasello and other scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute discovered that infants and chimpanzees are intrinsically motivated to help, overcoming obstacles without expecting any reward.

In a study by Tomasello's team, infants' pupils dilated when they saw someone in need—a sign of concern—but returned to normal when they were able to help or saw someone else help. This indicates that the relief of suffering, rather than receiving personal credit, was their primary concern.

Additional research by David Rand at Harvard University found that adults' and children's first impulse is to help others, not to compete. At Stanford's Graduate School of Business, Dale Miller discovered that people are sometimes hesitant to help due to concerns that others will see their actions as self-serving.

Logically, compassion is an instinct since it's critical for human survival. As Dacher Keltner highlighted, the phrase "survival of the fittest," often misattributed to Charles Darwin, was actually coined by Herbert Spencer and the Social Darwinists, who aimed to justify class and racial superiority. In The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin argued for "the greater strength of the social or maternal instincts than that of any other instinct or motive." He also stated that "communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring."

Compassion is an evolved, adaptive trait. Without it, the survival and prosperity of our species would have been improbable. Furthermore, compassion makes us more attractive as romantic partners. A study on traits valued in potential partners shows that men and women rank "kindness," a component of compassion, is among the most desirable attributes.

Compassion’s Health Benefits

?Why is compassion crucial for our survival? The answer may partly lie in its profound benefits for both physical and mental health, contributing significantly to our overall well-being. Research by positive psychology pioneers Ed Diener and Martin Seligman indicates that meaningful connections with others enhance mental and physical health, while also accelerating recovery from illness. Additionally, studies by Stephanie Brown of Stony Brook University and Sara Konrath of the University of Michigan suggest that compassion may even extend our lifespan.

One reason a compassionate lifestyle leads to greater psychological well-being is that giving appears to be as pleasurable, if not more so, than receiving. Neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health conducted a brain imaging study revealing that the brain's pleasure centers, which activate when we experience pleasures like dessert, money, or sex, are equally active when we see someone giving money to charity as when we receive money ourselves.

Moreover, giving to others enhances well-being beyond the satisfaction we feel when spending on ourselves. Elizabeth Dunn, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, demonstrated thisin an experiment where participants received money: half spent it on themselves, while the other half spent it on others. At the end of the study, published in Science, those who spent on others felt significantly happier than those who spent on themselves.

This phenomenon even applies to infants. Lara Aknin and her colleagues at the University of British Columbia found that giving treats made children as young as two happier than receiving treats themselves.

A more surprising discovery is that giving brings more joy than receiving across different nations, whether rich or poor. Aknin led a study across 136 countries that found a strong correlation between well-being and the amount of money people spend on others, regardless of their income, social support, perceived freedom, or national corruption.

Research by Steve Cole of UCLA and Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, offers a clue. They examined cellular inflammation levels in people who described themselves as "very happy." Inflammation, a root cause of cancer and other diseases, is generally higher in stressed individuals. One might expect lower inflammation in happy people, but Cole and Fredrickson found this only held true for specific groups. People who experienced happiness from pleasure alone ("hedonic happiness") showed high inflammation levels, while those who felt happy due to purpose and meaning ("eudaimonic happiness") exhibited low levels. A purposeful life focused on others, rich in compassion and altruism, is linked to better health.

Additionally, research suggests that a compassionate lifestyle improves longevity by buffering against stress.Michael Poulin from the University at Buffalo led a study of more than 800 people which revealed that stress was associated with a higher risk of death—but not among those who helped others.

?A study published by Ellen E. Lee and colleagues in Translational Psychiatry provided the first longitudinal study examining compassion toward others (CTO) and compassion toward self (CTS) as predictors of mental and physical health outcomes, including loneliness across adult lifespans. The results showed that over a lifetime, compassion was positively correlated with mental and physical well-being, particularly for women and younger adults, peaking at around age 77.

How Compassion Can Change the World

Why do the lives of people like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Desmond Tutu inspire us so deeply? Have you ever been moved to tears by witnessing someone's loving and compassionate behavior?

Research by Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at NYU, suggests that seeing someone help another person creates a state of "elevation," a warm, uplifting feeling we experience in the presence of awe-inspiring goodness. Haidt's data indicate that this elevation inspires us to help others and could spark a chain reaction of generosity. Haidt and colleagues also discovered that corporate leaders who demonstrate self-sacrificing behavior and evoke "elevation" in their employees gain more influence and inspire their employees to be more compassionate and dedicated in the workplace.

Compassion is indeed contagious. Social scientists James Fowler from UC San Diego and Nicholas Christakis from Harvard demonstrated that acts of kindness trigger a chain reaction of generosity. You might have seen news reports about one of these chain reactions where a person pays for the meals of subsequent diners at a restaurant or for tolls of drivers behind them. People often continue this generosity for hours. Fowler and Christakis's research also shows that happiness spreads—if those around us are happy, our happiness increases too.

Cultivating Compassion

While compassion appears to be an evolved instinct, it can still benefit from training. Several studies indicate that various compassion and "loving-kindness" meditation practices, primarily derived from Buddhist traditions, can help foster compassion.

Developing compassion doesn't require years of study and can happen rapidly. A 2008 study found that just seven minutes of meditation increased participants' feelings of closeness and connection to their meditation target. This even applied to compassion measures beyond their conscious control, suggesting a profound change.

Similarly, Barbara Fredrickson's nine-week loving-kindness meditation intervention resulted in participants experiencing more positive emotions, fewer depressive symptoms, and greater life satisfaction. Sheethal Reddy from Emory University found that compassion training for foster children increased their hopefulness. Overall, studies on compassion training indicate that these practices not only boost compassion but also enhance psychological well-being and social connection.

Research also reveals that compassion training impacts behavior. Tania Singer and her team at the Max Planck Institute developed the "Zurich Prosocial Game" to measure kind behavior and found that a day-long compassion training boosted prosocial behavior.

Interestingly, the type of meditation is less important than the act itself. Paul Condon of Northeastern University discovered that eight weeks of meditation training made participants more compassionate toward a suffering person, whether they practiced mindfulness or compassion meditation.

More research is needed to fully understand how compassion training promotes well-being and altruistic behavior. Antoine Lutz and Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that during meditation, participants' brains showed heightened activity in empathy-related regions when hearing emotion-evoking cries. Ga?lle Desbordes from Massachusetts General Hospital found that compassion and mindfulness meditation both reduced amygdala activity (the brain region that reacts to threats) in response to emotional images. However, compassion meditation did not reduce this activity when viewing human suffering, implying that it heightened responsiveness.

Collaborating with Thupten Jinpa, the Dalai Lama's personal translator, and Stanford psychologists, the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) developed a secular compassion program, Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT). Preliminary research by Stanford's Philippe Goldin suggests that CCT helps reduce social anxiety and enhances compassion measures. Besides teaching hundreds of community members and Stanford students, we have also launched a teacher-training program.

Given the importance of compassion in today's world and the increasing body of research supporting its health benefits, this field is likely to gain further interest and impact society broadly. With rigorous research supporting the practice of compassion, we are moving toward a world where it's understood to be as essential for health as exercise and diet. Widely accessible, empirically validated techniques will ensure compassion training becomes common in schools, hospitals, prisons, and beyond.

To read about the connection between compassion and achieving self-mastery in life, be sure to get a copy of my recent book, The Journey to Self-Mastery: Unlocking the Secrets to Personal Transformation, available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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